Bug 379157

Summary: Desktop selection during installation
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 11.0 Reporter: Michael Loeffler <michl>
Component: InstallationAssignee: Lukas Ocilka <locilka>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: Jiri Srain <jsrain>
Severity: Major    
Priority: P5 - None CC: aj, awafaa, benji, bitdealer, coolo, federico, fnmueller, francis, fs, jsrain, ke, kevin.dupuy, martin.schlander, pascal.bleser, pratik_therock, wstephenson
Version: Alpha 3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: openSUSE 11.0   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: screnshot
Initial screen - we don't give a recommendation ;)
"Other" selected
Random desktop selected (on of the 'major' ones)

Description Michael Loeffler 2008-04-11 13:55:49 UTC
Public discussion are showing that there is high interest to make KDE3 easily available during installation.
Our suggestion is to offer a desktop selection at first level:

Gnome
KDE4
KDE3
Others

Each desktop should receive screenshot for first impression. 
We need to decide whether add a short description to each desktop or just create a general introduction on dekstops. See also discussion on ml:
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2008-04/msg00236.html

Below Others xfce, text mode etc. is offered if clicked on Others.
Comment 1 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-11 14:03:30 UTC
So, what exactly do you need? It seems (according to the mailing-list thread) that the dialog is not a problem, KDE3 vs KDE4 *IS* the real problem.

Which Others should be listed?

We've tried screenshots and they just don't work - too small to say anything. The current implementation is useful for most of cases the only which is missig is: splitting KDE into KDE3 and KDE4.
Comment 2 Michael Loeffler 2008-04-11 18:21:44 UTC
First level Gnome, KDE4, KDE3 and Ohters should be listed. No default selection.

Here's some description we might use:
At Linux choice is a top priority. openSUSE offers a number of different desktop environments. Below you see a list of the 2 major ones Gnome and KDE. Both provide an easy to use desktop with a large number of desktop applications such as email, file browser, games and many others. If you don't know which one to select the screenshots give a first impression. At Others even more choice is offered. 
As desktop selection is a matter of taste a clear recommendation can't be given. 

Gnome 
Gnome 2.22 desktop is the lates out of the Gnome Project. It's stable and ready to use. 

KDE 3
KDE 3.5.9 is the previous release of KDE; it's mature and stable and will fulfill all your day to day needs. 

KDE 4
KDE 4.0.4 is the latest evolution of KDE. It is fairly mature and comes with all of the latest KDE technologies and applications. As it is still under development you might run into smaller issues. 

I ccd some included in this discussion for feeback and edits ;-)
Comment 3 Will Stephenson 2008-04-12 17:26:48 UTC
How's this?

"
Linux gives its users choice as a top priority. openSUSE offers a number of different desktop environments. The two major complete desktop environments are GNOME and KDE.

Both provide an easy to use desktop with a large number of applications
such as email, file browser, games and many others. If you don't know which one
to choose, select the screenshots give a first impression. 'Others' gives access to lightweight desktop environments and pure window managers.

As desktop selection is a matter of taste, we do not give a recommendation.  Applications can always be mixed and matched between desktops.

GNOME 
GNOME 2.22 is the latest desktop from the GNOME Project. It combines stability and maturity with incremental innovations.

KDE 3
KDE 3.5.9 is the previous generation of the K Desktop Environment; it is mature and stable and will fulfil all your day to day needs. 

KDE 4
KDE 4.0.4 is the most recent evolution of KDE.  It comes with many new KDE technologies.  As it is still very young, you may still run into smaller issues."  
Comment 4 Dirk Mueller 2008-04-14 08:15:12 UTC
I wouldn't like to mention "you may still run into smaller issues" in a installation workflow. at least my goal is to fix those smaller issues instead of advertising them. 

anyway, with the proposed KDE3/KDE4 order, there is no implicit default given. if people just want KDE, they should get KDE4. they shouldn't need to decide between KDE3 and KDE4. 

Comment 5 Martin Schlander 2008-04-14 10:32:01 UTC
I think it's rather optimistic to think that KDE4.0 can be fixed to reach anywhere near the level of polish, stability, features and "just works" of KDE3.5.9 in 60 some days. This goes for the desktop shell, but also all the apps. 

I can't see any other good way to handle the situation than forcing the user to choose, and preparing him for the fact that KDE4.0 is very far from being as mature and reliable as KDE3.5.

I still think most users will select KDE4, but pushing people into KDE4.0 with false advertising is a very dangerous thing.

Do you really think that a single non-fanboy/non-geek will happier with 4.0 than with 3.5?
Comment 6 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-14 10:35:09 UTC
Guys, what do you think of using mailing-list for discussions and bugzilla for reporting bugs and for their solutions?
Comment 7 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-14 14:09:43 UTC
I've modified the Desktop Selection dialog to contain both KDE3 and KDE4. This is the maximum I can do now for Beta1.
Comment 8 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-14 14:15:06 UTC
Let's move the discussion to FACTORY mailing-list again as the real "bug" is "fixed" ...

--- cut ---
Public discussion are showing that there is high interest to make KDE3 easily
available during installation.
--- cut ---

The current half-solution makes it easy to chose KDE4 or KDE3 ... I can change it later again when we have a good proposal and it is accepted by the most of the claimants.
Comment 9 Stephan Kulow 2008-04-22 14:37:15 UTC
trying two steps back
Comment 10 Dirk Mueller 2008-04-22 15:13:44 UTC
are we really going with the screenshot idea? is there anything that the screenshot helps with (after all all desktops will have the same window deco and wallpaper, and nothing else you can discover really in such a small thumbnail, unless you add a naked woman on one of the screenshots)

also, what happened to the two level (GNOME/KDE and then KDE 3/4) selection ?

Comment 11 Stephan Kulow 2008-04-22 16:14:13 UTC
Created attachment 209654 [details]
screnshot

Current proposal in ycp
Comment 12 Felix-Nicolai Müller 2008-04-22 17:05:44 UTC
I like the way it looks. 
Sadly, the ordering of the items is wrong. As alphabetical ordering was chosen some time ago so to not put some emphasis on one DE it needs to be:
Gnome
KDE _3_
KDE _4_

HTH
Felix
Comment 13 Kevin Dupuy 2008-04-22 22:29:19 UTC
I really like it. I especially like the description that is provided to tell the user exactly what Desktop Selections are. I think the ordering should stay as it is.
Comment 14 Martin Schlander 2008-04-23 06:41:33 UTC
Looks good, like the text, everything is very nice regarding the main desktops.

However I'm a little bit worried about the term/heading "Desktop selection" since text install and light weight wm are also among the options. I really liked the term "System type" used in previous 11.0 dev releases.

openSUSE is very under-appreciated as a (home) server - and also as a light weight destkop system - I come across even pretty longtime users that don't realize text installation is even an option, thinking openSUSE is a very strictly desktop oriented distro. 

My suggestion is fairly simple. Add a description to "Others" saying:
"Text based server installation, Xfce, light weight window manager.."

So that users will know what's there straight away.
Comment 15 Stephan Kulow 2008-04-23 07:38:20 UTC
*** Bug 381938 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 16 Stephan Kulow 2008-04-23 07:38:56 UTC
*** Bug 381947 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 17 Stephan Kulow 2008-04-23 07:40:02 UTC
perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but the discussion went pretty much ok. so please fix the mockup to actually work - I only concentrated on text and layout.
Comment 19 Stephan Kulow 2008-04-23 17:20:08 UTC
*** Bug 382511 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 20 Jakub Steiner 2008-04-24 07:24:05 UTC
The items should be using pattern-kde, pattern-kde4, pattern-gnome ... icons, not yast-*. These duplicate yast-* icons are going away.
Comment 21 Martin Schmidkunz 2008-04-25 08:10:01 UTC
I like the suggestion proposed in #11.
Comment 22 Stefan Hundhammer 2008-04-25 10:47:50 UTC
(In reply to comment #21 from Martin Schmidkunz)
> I like the suggestion proposed in #11.

me too.

Comment 25 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-25 16:12:27 UTC
Created attachment 210550 [details]
Initial screen - we don't give a recommendation ;)
Comment 26 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-25 16:13:20 UTC
Created attachment 210551 [details]
"Other" selected
Comment 27 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-25 16:14:32 UTC
Created attachment 210552 [details]
Random desktop selected (on of the 'major' ones)
Comment 28 Stephan Kulow 2008-04-25 16:31:07 UTC
thanks
Comment 29 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-25 16:36:44 UTC
- New desktop selection dialog (bnc #379157).

  * yast2-installation-2.16.40
  * yast2-packager-2.16.39
  * skelcd-control-openSUSE-2008.4.25

Have a nice day :)
Comment 30 Will Stephenson 2008-04-27 22:03:18 UTC
There is now a 'the' missing in the text for KDE 3.5.

"of _the_ K Desktop Environment"

Please close when this is sorted.
Comment 31 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-28 07:52:01 UTC
yast2-packager-2.16.40
Comment 32 Karl Eichwalder 2008-04-30 16:28:52 UTC
Judging from our POTs in the translation SVN, recent texts are available for translation:

grep "K Desktop" *pot
packager.pot:"KDE 3.5 is the previous generation of the K Desktop Environment.\n"
Comment 33 PRATIK PATEL 2008-08-08 08:03:41 UTC
system gets freezed while the start up and some times doesn't compltes its boot in opensuse 11.00